In many ways, the complimentary “Man of 1,000 Voices” moniker sold Blanc incredibly short — his son Noel claims his dad did about 1,500 voices.

Blanc’s career, and his life, almost came to a crashing halt (literally) in 1961, when his car was involved in a head-on collision on Dead Man’s Curve on Hollywood Boulevard. What happened next is beyond fascinating.

WYNC’s Radiolab, “a show about curiosity,” recently reeled off a short but in-depth piece on how Blanc woke up from his coma in character (characters, actually), and why the intricacies of the human brain continue to baffle us.